Last week the eBay Partner Network Team attended the inaugural BlogWorld New York Conference. Like many of you, we were curious to see how this first event would compare to the previous iterations in Las Vegas. Would there still be a community feel or would the city swallow any sense of conference cohesion? In what ways has the online marketing space changed since we last gathered in October at Mandalay Bay?

This new version of BlogWorld may have been smaller, but I’m happy to report that the passion for content creation and monetization was alive and well at the Jacob Javits Center.

The ePN Team fanned out across a variety of sessions and speakers on subjects ranging from social media to mobile and, of course, affiliate marketing. In addition to a range of daytime activities, we also mingled in the evenings at various BlogWorld events.

Scott chats with Gary Vaynerchuk about his book “The Thank You Economy”at the official BlogWorld Opening Night party.

Not to be outdone, we also threw a little shindig of our own at BlogWorld. With the help of our friends Murray Newlands of Trancos and Steve Hall of Adrants, we had a great cocktail reception at Stitch Lounge. In addition to catching up with old friends from the conference, this gave us a chance to meet or reconnect with some of our ePN publishers gathered in New York.

The eBay Team at our cocktail reception at Stitch Lounge.

Kristine and Andy at Stitch Lounge.

Tye and Ivka at Stitch Lounge.

Festivities aside, one of our goals at BlogWorld was to really get a sense of what the blogging community thinks of eBay Partner Network. For those that work with us - what makes it click for you? For those that aren’t part of our program - what are some of your reasons? We were determined to pick attendees brains and get some intel that we could take back to HQ.

Over the coming months the team will continue to attend industry events to continue to network and gather information about what we can do to make ourselves more attractive in the online monetization space. In the meantime, we want to thank all of you that made time to meet with us, attend our reception at Stitch or say hello to us in the hallways. We’re excited to be part of such a vibrant community and we look forward to doing great things with you as the year continues.